There is always a price to pay no matter your decisions in life.

It’s one of the reasons why the common lesson of life “provide meaning to suffering” is timeless wisdom.

Decisions lead to actions - resulting in either good or bad outcomes - based on your perspective.

Yet doing absolutely nothing is the invisible third decision that becomes the absolute worse outcome of the two.

Especially in today’s heavily promoted tendencies relating to “mental health.”

The audacity to promote such a thing to a society full of snowflakes when there were people who experienced and survived the living hell on earth called concentration camps by overcoming traumas and STILL discovered happiness.

I cannot help but realize an underlining dynamic taking place that only further accentuates people’s self perceived “problems” encountered in life.

Don’t get me wrong here:

Discussing a problem with the intentions of coming up with a solution is great.

However, the biggest down fall comes when - the only reason problems are brought up - is to just vent about the problem for the sake of venting itself.

Let me explain:

The more a problem is being discussed [without seeking a solution] it only reenforces this pandemic we face now in society called a victim’s mentality.

It becomes glaringly obvious that society’s comforts for a better life has continued to produce generation after generation a snowflake civilization.

Talking about a problem provides the brain cheap feel good dopamine spikes [temporarily releases the tension and friction].

Ongoing discussions about an individual’s life… yet the problems remain.

There literally could not be more of a worst way to waste precious time on pointless bullshit.

As this bad behavior continues for years it will reenforce a sense of self that has identified with being a victim.

The self proclaimed victim, consciously or unconsciously, will continue to seek and interpret life experiences why they are being “mistreated” only for them to secretly attempt to get the next dopamine spike through the means of talking about the problem once more.

When you can fully grasp power of the mind [capable of interpreting external feedback into subjective experience] is when you can see how serious this gets.

Especially when survival bias, negativity bias and confirmation bias kick in to use objective feedback to further push this subjective narrative to mold the individual’s identity…

At the end of the day:

Talk is cheap and leads to absolutely fuckin’ nothing without action.

Discuss the problem to objectively gain perspective of the situation to make informed decision so you can come up with a plan to resolve the issues so it never appears again.

That is how to solve a problem.

Not endlessly talking about a problem…

Before I can dive deeper into today’s topic - you must understand yet another vital life concept.

THOUGHTS, WORDS & ACTIONS

These components are the simplest way to breakdown your very complex sense of Self as they are tools to be used in discovering who you really are ie the Self.

It is only through consciousness that we tap into the raw power of turning a desired life experience into a living reality.

Understand that honesty, vulnerability, integrity, authenticity and being genuine can only be experienced when thoughts, words and actions are perfectly aligned.

A uncompromising sense of congruency that came directly from the Self.

If one of those three are not aligned - something will feel off to the trained eye via Honest Signals.

*This is what you will notice between a bad actor and an oscar award winning performance.

Remember those people pleasing moments in life where you had a honest thought yet you said and acted a different way?

Teacher asks if there are any questions: yet you were too shy to ask.
Friends pure pressured you into drinking: yet you planned to take it easy.
Someone asks how was your day: yet you say “good” when it is bad.

This is it.

When you make a life commit to keep your thoughts, words and actions congruent:

You will experience a never ending sensation that transcends any other feeling you can get outside yourself.

It’s a difficult task to accomplish but absolutely necessary if you want to make living your most desired life experiences that much more better.

If your most desired life experiences were the steak, this shameless authenticity would be the salt and pepper that drastically enriches life’s flavors.

You see.

This Way of life becomes your internal compass helping you navigate through uncertain futures and ever changing environments.

Based on personal experience: I blindly adopted this pathetic “victim’s mentality” for YEARS then broke free from the toxic source into true freedom of Self expression - life has become literally a night and day difference.

With the wildly bizarre values being pushed onto the masses, it becomes absolutely essential to develop this ‘judge of character’ intuition as good character is not a mandatory criteria anymore.

In fact: lack of congruency is heavily promoted and favored for as long as it meets the demand of harnessing attention at any means necessary.

As you can imagine this gets completely out of control…

RADICAL HONESTY

If you analyzed every area of your life down to it’s nuances - health, wealth, social, happiness - can you be brutally honest with yourself:

Are you are living your life exactly as you wanted?

Ponder on this you must.

Identify the source of your beliefs and determine if it is actually what you want or… was it something someone told you should want.

It is completely normal for your Ego to justify your current reality.

The ego will backwards rationalize everything you do [so you are safe in your comfort zone] as all your biology cares about is seeking pleasure and avoiding pain to survive.

If you haven’t noticed it by now this means your self-sabotage does not care about you achieving your most desired life experiences.

As long as you are “safe” your untrained mind will do everything in it’s power to keep you in the comfort zone where growth cannot coexist.

It’s one of the reason why billions of people severely struggle with self-transformation and self-actualization.

Society has been designed to keep the masses operating in a lower consciousness sleep walking daze.

Ever wondered why “motivation” seems to be the top excuse why people cannot make a lasting change?

It is arguably harder to make a lasting change when nearly everything in the environment appeals to your primal nature’s desire to seek pleasure and avoid pain.

Look.

Instead of tapping into self-discipline to do the action regardless of the emotion present - one can simply seek pleasure and avoid pain as a means of not having “motivation” to do what is required to accomplish desired life outcomes.

Can you see how vicious of a downwards spiral it gets if you do not possess a rock solid level of self-discipline to control yourself, time and thoughts?

When you can fully grasp these abstract ideas:

• leveraging emotions through self-discipline to make real change

• how little time you actually have here on earth

• your unexamined Way of life is people pleasing out of your fears

• reevaluating your self limiting beliefs that are years/decades outdated

• you are not your thoughts - “you” is awareness observing thoughts

• society’s infrastructures both physical and digital designed to steal your life away from your own self-interest

• unhealed past traumas are directing your actions and behavior

• always be elevating your level of self-discipline so life gets easier

• understanding your primal nature and have it assist instead of resist

• people hold onto belief systems as it were a life and death situation

• and so much more…

These become the essential tools to use in order to better manage your Self and overall life experience.

In 2011 - I set a very audacious goal that made people freeze when they heard me say it…

“I want to travel the world indefinitely.”

Doesn’t seem that “audacious” now does it?

That’s considered normal today because the rise of social media and technology providing more opportunities than ever before in history.

However, over a decade ago, that 'travel the world indefinitely’ life was not normal as it was reserved for those in their retirement years [after spending majority of life in the rat race climbing the corporate ladder].

To make a long story, short:

I entered a dark depressing period of my life because I chose to pursue this desired life experience AFTER having fully analyzed my life and the direction where it was headed.

There’s something truly remarkable about experiencing a Ego death.

You no longer can backwards rationalize self sabotaging justifications as to why you do not have the life that you truly desire.

A game these victim’s love playing to keep receiving instant gratification at the expense of their most desired life outcomes via cheap dopamine spikes like a crack addict.

When I was radically honest with myself - I could not escape the truth - no matter how hard I tried to avoid it.

It was the truth that woke me up [from this ever so common sleep walking daze society pushes forward].

Seeking truth completely revolutionized my life experience in ways beyond words can explain.

This critical life changing experience was the catalyst which made my desired life experience actualize itself.

We will return back to the story later in this entry as it connects.

LEAN JUST BEYOND YOUR EDGE

One of many concepts that completely changed my life.

From arguably the #1 most influential books I’ve ever read to date…

The Way of The Superior Man by David Deida

I have read it back at least a dozen times by now as I deem it to be the ultimate guide for men.

Look.

There are phases in life where you will get comfortable.

Basic needs covered.
Accomplished a set of goals.
Experienced everything you ever wanted.
You name it.

Once relaxation and recovery has wore off from pursuing such a challenging task - we naturally lose a spark for life.

This spark is the feeling of excitement and passion for life itself.

One downside to accomplishing a goal is the spark disappears [not many are willing to admit this] or have yet to realize that the journey is the most enjoyable part instead of the destination.

If you ever asked yourself “is this it?” - you will know exactly what sensation I am referring to.

Often times the imagination of what the experience [of accomplishing the goal would be like] surpasses the actual experience of the achieved goal.

Closely examining the entire process of actualization - it was the Way that provided the most enjoyment.

This enjoyable sensation is known as the flow state.

After you have faced the harsh truths about your current life situation [ask your friends if you have a hard time discovering it].

You will be able to objectively create a plan to make change occur with the infinite amount of information available.

With this world of abundant information all that is required to produce the results you desire in life is through self-discipline [action x consistency x momentum = results appear with time playing to your favor].

To learn more about how you can practically develop your self-discipline read: https://philosophyofjiu-jitsu.com/p/the-7-tenets-of-self-discipline

Personally.

I may have taken this “lean just beyond your edge” to the extremes… but I desperately needed to make a extreme change fast.

Especially at a time in history where the world was perceived to be ending - December 21, 2012

With the fear of death lingering combined with the brutal truth of my life circumstance I was given yet another hidden blessing in disguise:

A negative role model.

Often times we encounter a handful of inspirational individuals we would like to model ourselves after.

As common as it is to model yourself after these positive examples - there is tremendous advantages to be gained from the negative.

Due to the cards I was dealt, I did not have a single soul within my networks nor family that was living the life I was dreaming of [which only makes it that much harder to belief that the impossible is possible].

However, this hidden ace up my sleeve [the negative role model], helped me win the game of making a desired life experience come true.

You see.

Not only did this negative role model help me acknowledge exactly ‘how I did not want my life to end up’ which only made it easier for me to identify what it is I do want.

But when I made the connection that this fear [having the life of the negative role model] was where I was headed… it significantly outweighed the fears of failure.

Connecting one and two will put your unpractical fears of possible failure into perspective so you can take RELENTLESS action while developing your self-discipline in the face of the inevitable resistance.

Sometimes all it takes for you to make change possible is stepping back to put everything into perspective.

That made me take a massive leap of faith to the point of delusion:

Simply knowing it was possible to make money online was enough for me to book a one way ticket overseas without an income.

EVOLUTION ALWAYS DOES ITS JOB

This is living just beyond your edge.

Because how else do you expect your desired life experience to ‘magically’ happen overnight?

What by keep doing the same thing then expect different results?

The results you have now are a direct reflection of your past actions.

Different results requires a different Way of Being, aligned to your Ideal Self, who has your most desired life experiences.

When you can clearly identify who your Ideal Self is - you can list out all the modes of behavior this individual would do that got the results.

Now list out the actions the negative role model engages in.

Finally write out every action you are currently doing.

This will show you the trajectory of the future based on your current daily actions.

What could be one of the reasons why your Ideal behaves in such a Way?

Because their environment is set up to elicit a very specific behavior [that comes with zero effort] as it is apart of their identity.

A engaged behavior that got the results you desire.

That is exactly what evolution has proven time and time again:

If one was not able to adapt… they would be weeded out due to natural selection and survival of the fittest.

Those that adapted survived and the few that leveraged the conditions the best thrived.

As an adult you should know by now that lasting change takes time to run it’s natural course [assuming you are consistently taking action].

But what if there was a better “shortcut” that produced results faster?

Live Life Just Beyond Your Edge

This is what I have discovered [proactively behaving like the Ideal Self that has my most desired life experiences] during a time where I felt like I did not have enough time.

Allow evolutionary pressures to naturally transform your life by consciously creating the conditions through your environment.

Because at the end of the day:

Your overall life experience truly is capped by your limited imagination.

See you on the mats,

POJ